One of the most compelling reasons that I blog is because it gives me a purpose for all the photographs I take. With five children, I obviously don’t need a reason to take photos. But aside from the usual family ones, I have (thanks to my blog) developed a love of photographing flowers, veggies and [...]

Aquilegias are about as feminine and frilly as you can get. And at this time of year, they are everywhere. They self-seed wildly, and romp around your garden until you have to ask them to calm down. As with every well-known plant, there’s more to this species than those purple frilly flowers which pop up [...]

{Weekly wrap-up} Hot posts, stories and images from the web this week. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds and plants at Victoriana Nurseries. Just click here to claim an automatic discount. Subscribe to F&F updates ——————————————————————————————————————————-

All the plants on the plot went on strike this month to protest against the poor growing conditions. Until the weather improved they just refused to make any growth. Seedlings that had popped their heads through on the plot just refused to come out of the ground any further. Those plants that attempted to defy [...]

…these fabulous seed grenades from Suck UK. Filled with wildflower seeds and soil, these grenades will help any would-be guerilla gardeners jazz up dull and neglected spots of land. And they look fabulous. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds and plants at Victoriana Nurseries. Just click here to [...]

What were your favourite plots at Chelsea this year? I’ve already touched on two gardens which I adored for very different reasons, but there were a number of others which I have been mulling over all week. So here are five more gardens that I loved: ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off [...]

Image by Tambrieann Click here to visit the F&F Flickr group and upload your own photos ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds and plants at Victoriana Nurseries. Just click here to claim an automatic discount. Subscribe to F&F updates ——————————————————————————————————————————-

Rebsie Fairholm is a heritage vegetable expert. She knows so much about open-pollinated crops that she has turned her hand to breeding a few of her own, and documents her progress on her lovely blog. And from now on, each month Rebsie will share her top heritage crops with F&F readers. Hooray! Up until 100 [...]

Until I saw the beautiful RC-1 rain collector from Bau Outdoors, I always thought water butts were destined by to be hideous lumps of plastic. But this is truly hot stuff. In fact, it’s such a lovely piece of kit that calling it a water butt seems a little unfair. This is a rain collector, [...]

The Daily Telegraph Garden, designed by Andy Sturgeon, scooped the Best in Show award at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. I was surprised when I visited it yesterday: I thought I would despise it. I feared those harsh rusty girder-like screens, and the colours in the planting scheme. But I adored this garden, and its [...]

Dawn Isaac designed this hot London plot so the occupiers could grow their veg and eat it, all in one space. The couple were keen to grow their own, but given this was at the front of their terraced house, and was visible from the house, it needed to look good as well. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel [...]

Monday at the Chelsea Flower Show is an odd day. There are plenty of celebrities (or people wearing enough make-up and expensive looking clothes to masquerade as them, anyway), plenty of very important people (Michael Heseltine spotted wandering past the M&G garden), and one really important person (who has the whole showground cleared for Her [...]